Nicolai/Yuri. PG. ~400 words.
Yuri’s used to waking up facedown in the middle of the Graveyard.

–

Yuri’s used to waking up facedown in the middle of the Graveyard. He’s used to finding odd things in there, like floating masks and demonic–or is that holy?–trees. He’s even used to having a little dead girl poking around looking for his happiness. Not much surprises him anymore.

When he’s not used to finding, after he stands up and brushes himself off, is Nicolai slumped against Nox’s altar staring up at the blackness of his soul.

“Who the hell let you in here?” Yuri says.

Nicolai turns, his face blinking from smooth and self-assured to Astaroth’s vicious, twisting snarl. “I think you did,” he says, his features his own again.

“Yeah, well, maybe,” Yuri says, thinking about Albert Simon and the Forest of Wind. “But you can let yourself right back out again.”

“Quit it,” Yuri says, scrubbing a hand over his chest. Nox habitually stirs without his permission, and almost always when the Sapientes Gladio lackey is close at hand. He doesn’t really want to think about why, just in case Nox whispers the answer in his ear. “Go find somebody else to haunt.”

“No,” Nicolai says, and strokes his fingertips down the length of Nox’s glowing sigil.

Nox’s low growl spills from Yuri’s lips, the sensation mirrored on Yuri’s flesh as if Nicolai’s bare hand had touched him. “Quit it, I said!” Yuri shouts, short of breath from the effort but still in control. “Dying in here’s worse than out there.”

“I believe you,” Nicolai says, his hand still on the altar. “But do I want you to finish the job or do I want something else?”

“Hell if I know,” Yuri says. He turns his back on Nicolai and heads for the gate. “Figure it out for yourself, I’m busy.”

“I’ll be here, Yuri,” Nicolai calls, sounding alone, lost and desperate, over the grating stone doors. “I’ll be waiting right here!”

The gate slams shut, cutting off Nicolai’s voice. Into the silence, Yuri says, “You do that.”

At the same time as he hates the tug of pity in his chest, he’s grateful for it. It means he’s still more human than monster.